Hey guys,
I am looking for opinions on the best cardio for muscle preservation. I havent done any serious cutting for 3 years and am looking to maintain the hard earned muscle that I obtained while bulking up to 230 lbs.
Many thanks for any help.
Chuck
I don’t really have the experience to answer this but whatever you do, ease into it. A drastic drop in calories will lose you that muscle.
HIIT would be your weapon of choice. I remember Stu saying that he held on to the most muscle when using this method as well.
wrestling
but if that’s not your thing
sprints or other fast-stop-slow-fast running
GPP
HIIT is a very general term. Try out different variations and find out which one you find most enjoyable.
I lost nine pounds sprinting at the track but some people hate sprinting.
Definitely ease into it. Start out sprinting tomorrow and you’ll pull a hamstring or some shit. Anyways, it depends on the diet.
Big deficit in calories/carbs = stay away from HIIT, at least towards the end of your fat loss phase. Long duration cardio is good here… i.e. 30-60 mins.
Moderate deficit in calories/carbs = HIIT can be good, stick to 2x a week or so. No need to go above that.
the airdyne bike pwns all. do intervals on the airdyne for 20 mins and you’re good.
Hill runs are the shit
A friend of mine actually got stress fractures in her shins from hill sprinting, so id be careful. Id say Stairs/elliptical HIIT style. I wouldnt start up cardio for a bit though, start with the diet, then after a couple weeks, ease into the cardio. You drop an assload of calories/carbs/however you are dieting AND start doing cardio, itll be too drastic of a change and youll lose some muscle.
How tall are you? I’d say get your diet down to a T, up your intensity and shorten your rest periods while working out. You’ll drop a lot of body fat without having to do much “cardio”
.greg.
I like HIIT too. After a few weeks you may need to alternate the type of HIIT (e.g. sprinting twice a week could lead to shin flints/joint issues…especially if you’re not used to running). Jumping rope is a good low impact way of doing HIIT, and it’s good for your calve muscles.
Having said that though, one type of cardio isn’t necessarily better than the other if you use them wisely (don’t overdo them). You can do “slow paced” cardio as well as HIIT for better results (good to do slow paced cardio after HIIT).
For me personally, I have an active 8-5 job (which is like doing slow paced cardio), so doing a lot of cardio other than HIIT twice a week puts me “over the edge”…
It all boils down to activity in the end - doing enough to burn fat, but not too much in order to preserve muscle. No amount of activity will over-compensate a bad diet though (bad timing, especially of carbs, and eating too much).
One thing to bear in mind while cutting for the first time - don’t mistaken “flatter/un-pumped” muscles as muscle loss, it’s often just loss of muscle glycogen/water which happens with lower carb and/or calorie intake.
Sprinting is a good idea imo. If that’s not yer thing an interval program on an elliptical would do well. However, I believe pushing a car around trumps all. I’m assuming you doing this for fat loss not heart health (cardio). Cressey calls it energy systems work which I find to be a more precise term.
[quote]PT_Bodybuilder wrote:
Hey guys,
I am looking for opinions on the best cardio for muscle preservation. I havent done any serious cutting for 3 years and am looking to maintain the hard earned muscle that I obtained while bulking up to 230 lbs.
Many thanks for any help.
Chuck[/quote]
I would try doing none at first and trying to lean by diet alone until it does not work anymore and after that thinking about cardio.
They are multiple thread about this here and in the T-Cell Alpha forum. I would read them.
Brisk walking
[quote]Cprimero wrote:
Brisk walking[/quote]
This did not work for me but I didn’t have an overwhelming amount of bodyfat when I did it.
Whatever is low impact won’t chew up your muscle as bad as high impact work.
Just think, is what I’m doing going to tap into my ability to recover properly?
It’s my opinion (without support) that some worry a little too much about losing muscle by doing cardio. I could be wrong but I think that muscle loss would be minimal so long as you only dropped your calories by 300-400 per day and still lifted.
Though I’m assuming that you’d only do about 20 to 40 mins 3 or 4 times a week of cardio.
[quote]Nards wrote:
It’s my opinion (without support) that some worry a little too much about losing muscle by doing cardio. I could be wrong but I think that muscle loss would be minimal so long as you only dropped your calories by 300-400 per day and still lifted.
Though I’m assuming that you’d only do about 20 to 40 mins 3 or 4 times a week of cardio.[/quote]
Agreed, if you are a natural guy dieting for a contest and are getting sub 6% body fat we can talk muscle loss but if you are just getting in shape say 8-13% you shouldn’t be losing muscle.
My thoughts on the cardio issue
HIIT= best for burning the most fat. Comes with an added level of recovery that may hinder workouts and one should have some sort of carbs in the diet to perform this. Anywhere from 12-25 minutes. Works better for guys with slower metabolism or a lot of fat to lose.
Low Intensity= good for burning fat, but not as good as HIIT… unless you are WAY out of shape it shouldn’t hinder training at all. Can be done on a keto diet or more carb based diet. 30-90 minutes.
So what do I like? 1-2 sessions of HIIT a week(if you have carbs in your diet) and 2-4 sessions of low intensity cardio. Start on the low end of the durations and build up as needed based on weekly weigh ins/pictures.
For muscle preservation unless you are upwards of 60+ minutes 7+ times a week on low intensity and are sub 8% bodyfat… you aren’t going to be losing muscle unless your diet is too drastic or training over the top. Most shouldn’t NEED that much cardio till you are there if your diet is good.
I should probably repeat that about 100 times, it’s more important that your DIET is right than what cardio you do.
clears throat airdyne
^^ Yeah, but those things are hard to find, I think.